BELLS OF THE ANGELUS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 308, 1 July 1879, Page 3

BELLS OF THE ANGELUS.

Bells of the past whose long-forgotten music Still fills the wide expanse, "Tinging the sober twilight of the present With color of romance. I hear you call, and see the sun descending On rock and wave and sand, As down the coast the mission voices blending Girdle the heathen land. Within the circle of yonr incantation No blight nor mildew falls*;! No fierce unrest, nor lust,, nor low ambition Passes those airy walls. Borne on the swell of your love-wave.re-ceding I touch the farther past— I see the dying glow' of Spanish glory, The sunset dream and last! Before me rise the dome-shaped mission towers ; ■' .' ■■:,'.] ,r A<' A The white presidio ; The swart commander in his leather jerkin, The Priest in stole of snow. ■Once more I see Portal a's cross uplifting Above the setting sun ; And past the headland, northward slowly drifting The freighted galleon. O solemn bells! whose consecrated masses Recall the faith of old— O tinkling bells ! that lulled with twilight music The spiritual fold! Your voice break and falter in the darkness— . , Break, falter, and are still; And veiled and mystic, like the host desonding,.. ••......,- The sun sinks frbnV the hill! : >. • ;.; -~ :■-. __Bret Harte.